![[CIVIL WAR MUSIC-JOHN BROWN'S BODY] HALLGREEN, HENRY J., SERGEANT. Archive of manuscript letters and lyrics offering the original history of the Civil War march John Brown's Body. [Fort Warren, MA: after](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/810/1496810.jpg?itok=ONLJ5H1-)
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Lot 29
[CIVIL WAR MUSIC-JOHN BROWN'S BODY] HALLGREEN, HENRY J., SERGEANT. Archive of manuscript letters and lyrics offering the original history of the Civil War march John Brown's Body. [Fort Warren, MA: after
April 1861]. Approximately 19 items total comprising 6 sheets relating to the song, an 1872 songbook especially bound for Hallgreen and including a printing of Julia Ward Howe's update of the song, and other letters and materials relating mostly to Hallgreen's military service and family matters. Folds, light handling, occasional stains.
Sgt. Henry J. Halliday's manuscript account of the creation of John Brown's Body, the instantly recognizable Civil War march that morphed into Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic. In the papers, Hallgreen repeats his story about his time in April 1861 as Sergeant to Company A of the Massachusetts 2nd Battalion, known as the "Tigers", then stationed at Fort Warren at the entrance to Boston Harbor. On his rounds, Hallgreen heard two homesick soldiers from Maine singing and took notice of the song, particularly it's chorus of "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!" The song caught on among the soldiers guarding the fort and new lyrics quickly took aim at a fellow soldier. Recently arrived at Fort Warren from Scotland was an immigrant named John Brown, no relation to the abolitionist recently executed for his raid on Harper's Ferry, but he was the younger brother of Lieutenant Brown of Company B. The younger Brown was frequently ribbed for his claim that he would not remain long at Fort Warren but would heroically go off to war as a soldier. Hallgreen credits a Lt. Dodd with the first lyric: "John Brown is going to be a soldier; good Lord when he marches off to war." A Sgt. Laughton is credited with the line that "John Brown's knapsack will be strapped upon his back" and Hallgreen himself provided "and they will fill it up with bullets and mouldy old hardtack." Mention comes next of Elmer Ellsworth, the first Union casualty of the Civil War, and in the manuscripts the line reads: "Ellsworth's body lies mouldering in the grave but his soul's marching on."
Hallgreen reports the song was played every Sunday with a band and eventually the full lyrics were realized. Oftentimes replaced in the earliest printed versions of the song, the papers here contain the lyric that "We will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree" and "we'll feed him on the apples 'till he gets diarrhea."
When the regiments were moved south to join the larger Army protecting Washington, the song travelled with them and became a popular marching anthem. It is oft repeated that in November 1861 when Julia Ward Howe and her husband attended a public review of Massachusetts troops defending Washington, she heard the popular march and was encouraged to write more appropriate lyrics. Motivated in the middle of the night, to the tune of John Brown's Body Howe wrote the lyrics to what was soon known as The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the most patriotic of American songs deeply identified with the Union cause in the Civil War. The Tiger Regiment's role in the creation of the march, with its loose association with John Brown the abolitionist, has been researched but original documents are scarce and the current papers are worthy of future study. Sadly, John Brown the soldier in Company B did make it to war but unfortunately was killed during a river crossing. We trace a similar first person history of the song by James Jenkins, a member of the regiment, sold in 1910, and note a similar document by Hallgreen offering a history of the song in the California Historical Society.
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